Bhagidari

Any institution is made up of the people and students, being primary stakeholders in the University system, have major role to play in various ways. I thought it a good idea to get comprehensive information on the working of the Students’ Union. If the facilities in the University are in poor condition even with presence of an elected Students' body and we are not being provided what we are entitled to as students, we have a right to know “why”….

Hence, this RTI application- a small step towards Governance and Participation…. :)

RTI Application can be accessed from here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_egOJutqRlLNWpaOXhVeDVJT3c/edit?usp=sharing

Bhagidari :)

Natural Rocks formation at the UoH Campus

University of Hyderabad (UoH), is one of the premier institutions of higher learning in India. Based upon various parameters many agencies have been ranking the UoH among top ten institutions in the country in recent years. Like many others, I too love this place very much because of my long association with this place and most importantly, the excellent platform I got here to explore my inner strengths, to do a lot of experiments with real life situations, to learn new things and to unlearn many other things. I’ve got wonderful lifetime friends and mentors during my stay at the UoH and feel very happy about this. One can’t say enough about the green coverage, the water bodies, the natural rocks and the biodiversity at the UoH that enriches the students’ stay here and everyone falls in love with this unique feature of the campus in no time; this aspect can’t be explained adequately in words, it needs to be experienced! :)

Well! With this background, when I look at state of affairs around, I do find a mismatch between desired level and actual situation in terms of governance, provision and management of utility services and stakeholders’ participation in decision making. Let’s get a glimpse of few most visible issues:

My RTI Success Story

The University Grants Commission (UGC) conducts the National Eligibility Test (NET) for award of lectureship eligibility and Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) where lakhs of candidates appear every time. I had appeared for the UGC NET in June 2012. The examination was objective type and the OMR response sheets were attached with carbon copies that candidates were allowed to take with them after the test for their reference. UGC NET June 2012 result was notified in September 2012 and my roll number didn’t appear in the list of successful candidates. However, when I tallied my responses from the carbon copy of the OMR sheets with the updated answer keys provided on the UGC NET website, I discovered that although my score was more than the qualifying criteria, I was not declared qualified. Immediately, I brought this to the notice of concerned officials at the UGC and I was advised to check my marks on the website after some days. Once candidates’ marks were updated on the website, I checked it again and found that my marks were underreported and it was below the qualifying marks.

Underreported Marks Sheet at the UGC NET website
Click on image for larger view

Centrality of Meaningful Public dialogue in Democracy

Prof. Amartya Sen receives honoris causa and also delivers the first Hyderabad Lecture at UoH

The University of Hyderabad (UoH) conferred the honoris causa to Prof. Amartya Sen, the renowned Economist and Bharat Ratna awardee on 19 December 2013 at a glittering function organized on the University campus. Prof. C H Hanumantha Rao, Chancellor, UoH presented the doctorate degree to Prof. Sen at the packed DST auditorium consisting of guests from the city, UoH community.

After the investiture ceremony, Prof. Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, Vice-Chancellor, UoH gave an introduction to the Hyderabad Lecture Series. The Hyderabad Lecture Series has been initiated with support from an endowment instituted at University of Hyderabad by Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA). The Lecture Series hopes to be an important series of lecture to contribute to the intellectual capacity of the Hyderabad city on issues of contemporary interest.

The Lectures will be organized at various public institutions in the twin cities. The Vice-Chancellor expressed his sincere thanks to IRDA for this kind gesture. He also expressed his gratitude to Prof. Sen to accept the invitation to deliver the first Hyderabad Lecture.

Prof. G. Nancharaiah, Dean, School of Economics presented a glimpse of important contributions of Prof. Sen especially in the area of economics.

In his lecture, Prof. Amartya Sen emphasized the importance of dialogue as a solution to deal with day-to-day issues in public and social life. He gave the example of Coffee House set up where people get a chance to share their mind on issues and subjects that can’t be discussed in formal settings like classrooms. These kind of informal settings are extremely important to discuss about neglected issues and to bring about the change through democratic means of discussion, voting etc.  Students have obvious reasons to discuss about many things and these informal discussion set-ups are necessary to facilitate this very important activity, he added.